


The Same Boat

by Penknife



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gen, Haven (Dragon Age), Temple of Sacred Ashes (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26163820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/pseuds/Penknife
Summary: Cullen wouldn't be Varric's first choice of a traveling companion, but he definitely comes higher on Varric's list than Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast, a woman who does not appear to know the meaning of the words "let's all calm down and talk about this like reasonable people."
Relationships: Cullen Rutherford & Varric Tethras
Comments: 18
Kudos: 43
Collections: Black Emporium 2020





	The Same Boat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ginipig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginipig/gifts).



Varric wouldn't call Cullen Rutherford a friend. It's possible that Cullen and Hawke were friends, for a certain mutually distrustful value of the word "friend." It's also possible that Cullen used to talk to Hawke about the city's problems because Cullen didn't have any actual friends to talk to, which is depressing when Varric thinks about it. 

His point is, Cullen wouldn't be Varric's first choice of a traveling companion, but he definitely comes higher on Varric's list than Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast, a woman who does not appear to know the meaning of the words "let's all calm down and talk about this like reasonable people." It's not that big a ship, so avoiding the Seeker's company down in the hold means being thrown into Cullen's company on deck.

Sea travel is supposed to be scenic, but from here, what Varric can see is the coast of the Free Marches, now a distant smudge on the horizon, and a lot of water. The slate-gray swells rise and fall, like some nautical metaphor that Varric will add later if he ever writes about this shit.

Cullen looks like he wishes that they wouldn't.

"Seasick?" Varric asks, somewhere between sympathy and his habitual feeling that all Templars need to be prodded until they admit to being actual people.

"No," Cullen says, and then, "Possibly."

"It's not generally that hard a question. So, are you under arrest, too, or is this a voluntary change of scene?"

"Seeker Pentaghast recruited me."

"To … do what, exactly?"

"Restore order. Negotiate a truce between Templars and mages. The details are a little unclear," Cullen says dryly. It makes Varric like him a tiny bit more to believe that he's aware of how unlikely it is that the Templars and mages will agree to stop fighting each other out of the goodness of their hearts.

"Good luck with that, Curly."

"At least it's not 'Knight-Commander,'" Cullen says, less indignantly than Varric expected.

"You've been promoted? Demoted? Transferred?"

"Somewhere between 'fired' and 'quit,'" Cullen says. "I'll be acting as military adviser to Seeker Pentaghast and the Divine in a personal capacity. I've resigned from the Templar Order."

There are a number of questions Varric is highly tempted to ask, including _did the Seeker promise you lyrium, and do you really think she's good for it?_ but he settles for, "I'm still a little unclear about which side of the war you're planning to be a military adviser for."

"Divine Justinia's side."

"All right," Varric says after a pause. So, the Chantry has decided to replace the Templars and Seekers with a shiny new fighting force of some kind. This is all sounding more and more like something that Varric ought to stay far away from, and yet it has a terrible fascination. He is dying to find out what happens. No, scratch that, he's trying _not_ to die to find out what happens.

"I'm glad that you approve," Cullen says. Varric can't decide whether that's sarcasm or not.

"Don't look at me. I'm a prisoner, here."

Cullen looks at Varric as if genuinely considering someone else's problems for the first time since they boarded the ship. "Why are you here?"

"Seeker Pentaghast still suspects I know where Hawke is. I told her I didn't, but she's just not a very trusting kind of lady."

"You're telling me that you couldn't have escaped from custody if you wanted to."

"Curly, you wound me," Varric says. "It's like you think I'm untrustworthy."

The hell of it is, he probably could have escaped if he'd put his mind to it. But he still would have had to leave Kirkwall, and there's nowhere else that he particularly wants to be. What he wants is to be back in the Hanged Man working on his next book. If he can't have that, he'd like to be somewhere with a good view of the action, so that he'll have some warning if the world is about to go completely to hell in some new and spectacular way.

"I'm not aware of any crimes you've committed that were my responsibility to do anything about," Cullen says.

"You know, I find that really hard to believe," Varric says.

Cullen runs a hand through his increasingly-untidy hair. "I'm not aware of any crimes you've committed that are my responsibility to do anything about anymore."

"I guess retirement's good for something, right?"

"You're avoiding the question."

"It's what I do," Varric says. He could stop there, but unfortunately under the circumstances _he_ doesn't have any actual friends to talk to, which isn't normal for him. "Apparently the Divine wants to know how it all went wrong in Kirkwall."

"Ah," Cullen says. For a while, they both seem to be considering how it all went wrong in Kirkwall. It occurs to Varric that this would be a terrific time to change the subject.

"So what's Ferelden like?" He's heard Hawke on the subject at great length, but it seems like a safe one.

"I don't expect you'll find it terribly different than what you're used to."

"Crazy blood mages everywhere, then?"

"Not … typically," Cullen says, in a tone of voice that screams "let's change the subject _again_." 

"I am really going to miss Kirkwall," Varric says, because it's better to finish the joke than to let it fall flat, and then searches for a better joke. It's possible that he should give up and stick to dialogue suited to dramatic heroes, but he's never been any good at writing dramatic heroes. "Giant spiders roaming around the sewers?"

"Fewer sewers. And fewer spiders." There's something that might even be humor in Cullen's tone. "Generally, the bears eat them."

"Oh," Varric says. "Wonderful." It's possible that he's being wound up. He wouldn't have thought Cullen had it in him. "Have I mentioned that my specialty isn't the wilderness?"

"The Temple of Sacred Ashes isn't _precisely_ in the wilderness," Cullen says, but the thoughtful way he's considering the question suggests that they are talking about "scenic mountain views," not "convenient to taverns and shops."

"I am really going to miss Kirkwall," Varric says, and he means it this time.

The docks of Denerim are a lot like the docks of Kirkwall, only instead of the familiar faces of would-be thieves, smugglers, and more-or-less honest laborers, there are unfamiliar faces that Varric assumes fall into one of those categories.

"Do not try to escape," Cassandra tells him in a daunting tone once they're off the ship and onto the dock. Varric shoulders his luggage and considers, briefly, trying to escape. But he's in a strange town, he'd have to pay his own passage home, and he's beginning to think he'd pay good money to watch Cullen Rutherford explain to all the Templars in Ferelden that mages are just misunderstood.

"If I give you my word not to try to escape, can we skip the 'marching me through town in shackles' part? It's not a fantasy of mine," Varric says.

Cassandra makes a disgusted noise.

"I'm certain that Varric would never break his word," Cullen says. Varric is pretty sure that's sarcasm, but it's delivered with an innocent expression that makes Varric wonder whether Cullen has hidden depths.

"See? We're all going to be friends," Varric says.

"That is hardly likely," Cassandra says, but she starts walking, and Varric trails along in her wake, propelled by morbid curiosity.

The road from Denerim to the Temple of Sacred Ashes winds through a lot of countryside. Varric isn't really a fan of countryside, but Cullen seems more cheerful than Varric can remember seeing him in ten years of living in Kirkwall.

"I understand that you have family in Ferelden," Cassandra says to Cullen. She's making small talk with Cullen, clearly trying to take his measure. She doesn't seem to feel the need to take Varric's measure any more than she already has.

"They live in South Reach," Cullen says.

"That is not so far. If you wish to visit them on our way—"

"I wouldn't ask you to make a side trip. I'm sure you're needed in the preparations for the Conclave."

"As are you," Cassandra says. "Afterwards, then, you must take some leave to see your family."

"Certainly," Cullen says, in a tone that says he has no intention of doing it.

That pricks Varric's curiosity. "What's the story? You can't be the black sheep of the family, you're a Templar Knight-Commander. Or didn't they approve of you becoming a Templar? No, wait, let me guess. You rose from disreputable origins to become an upright citizen."

"Varric," Cassandra says darkly.

"There's nothing disreputable about my origins," Cullen says. "Why are you asking?"

"I like to figure out what makes people tick."

"Please don't," Cullen says, which cuts down on the conversation considerably on the way to the Temple.

It is, indeed, in the mountains, up a rocky path that makes Varric think spiders are definitely lurking somewhere. Rather than hiking all the way to the Temple, they stop in a little settlement somewhere between a camp and a town that's apparently called Haven. It has one tavern, which Varric notes for later reference, a chantry, a blacksmith's shop, and exactly zero other points of interest.

Cassandra rounds on Varric as they dismount. "Do not think—"

"About escaping, yes, I know," Varric says. "I gave you my parole, remember? I'll just be taking in the sights."

"There are no sights," Cassandra says, and Varric decides that she prefers cities as well. It doesn't actually bring about a warm surge of fellow-feeling, or anything like that, but it does make her seem a little more human.

Varric hangs around talking to people for the next couple of days. The Conclave is gearing up, and various interested parties are staking out bits of mountain and countryside. It's not a particular comfort to Varric that Haven's preparations seem to include setting up trebuchets.

"Are we expecting to be attacked?" he asks Cullen one afternoon when the man is done conferring with Cassandra and Leliana, who may be the scariest woman Varric has ever met. Cullen has set up a tent where some other soldiers are camped, although surely "military advisor" ranks a bed in one of the cabins or in the Chantry itself. Whether he's genuinely too humble to want one, or wants people to think he is, or just doesn't trust a bunch of hired guards and renegade Templars out of his sight, Varric isn't certain. 

"We're not _not_ expecting to be attacked," Cullen says.

"That confident about the peace conference?"

"Of course we would all like the rebel mages and the Templars to come to the table to negotiate," Cullen says.

"Would we? Would you? I wouldn't have pegged you for a 'you know, the rebel mages kind of have a point' kind of guy back in Kirkwall."

"If I thought the Templar Order were right about everything, I wouldn't have left."

"You're still technically a Templar, and still working for the Chantry. Even if you've left the Order, that still suggests a certain set of views."

"I am not still technically a Templar," Cullen says doggedly. "And the rebel mages are justified in having grievances. As are the Templars. We need reform, and to come to some kind of compromise, not to burn the entire system to the ground."

"The thing is, nobody seems really interested in reforming."

"Let's hope Divine Justinia can persuade them. One way or another." Cullen's hand rests on his sword.

It's possible that Varric has made a terrible mistake in not running away. Stopping everybody from fighting sounds like a great idea to him, just not very realistic. Signing up to be on the Chantry's side of a war against everybody else sounds like a terrible idea. Just, literally the worst.

The morning of the Conclave, Varric has just crawled out of his tent and is considering breakfast in the Singing Maiden now that the crowd has cleared out, when there's a flash of green that fills the sky. It's followed by the rumbling crash of a large stone building exploding. It would be nice not to already know what that sounds like.

Green light boils overhead, people scream and run around and generally behave like panicked crowds anywhere, and Varric shoulders Bianca. All of his experience of Kirkwall suggests that if there isn't anything to shoot at yet, there will be soon.

As it turns out, there are several days' worth of demons to shoot at, followed by getting to mix it up with a pride demon so that some poor bastard who fell out of the sky can close the hole that the demons are coming from. Weirdly enough, this works. The poor bastard in question collapses in the snow and gets carried back to Haven, with people whispering about how they're the "Herald of Andraste" sent by the Maker to save everybody from being buried in demons.

Varric, who isn't either holy or unconscious, gets to walk. Horses are in short supply right now, and those they can round up are being used to carry the wounded and exhausted. On the road back to Haven, Varric catches up to Cullen Rutherford, who looks like he ought to count in both categories.

"Are we having fun yet?"

"This isn't how I envisioned the Conclave going, no," Cullen says. "You might want to spare Cassandra the attempts at humor. Or steer clear of Cassandra entirely. This is … personal for her."

"I bet it is," Varric says, both humor and the energy to shoot any more demons today draining away. They have lost _so many_ people. Even the dead from Haven aren't more than names and faces to Varric, people he's had a drink with in the Singing Maiden or shared a meal with around the campfire. Most of them he's never met at all. It's different for everybody who's lost friends. It's going to be personal for a lot of people. "What a mess."

"So, we start cleaning up," Cullen says, and Varric has to like him in that moment. At least Cullen's trying. There's something to be said for trying. "Or—is this the part where you make your 'escape'? I can't imagine anyone would stop you."

"Like I told Cassandra, you need me," Varric says. "And Bianca." He pats the crossbow affectionately.

"If you're not careful, I'll start thinking you have a responsible side."

"You don't really know me, Curly," Varric says.

Varric has always had a bad habit of trying to take care of other people. It hasn't always worked out the way he'd like. But if Cullen has thought all this time that Varric was out for nothing but personal gain, Cullen hasn't ever really seen him.

"I suppose I don't," Cullen says, his face starting to close. Not a man who makes friends easily, Varric thinks. But a man who might actually be a friend worth having.

"Luckily, I never get tired of talking about myself," Varric says. "Or of hearing the heroic tales of how we all managed to not get killed by several thousand demons."

"It probably wasn't thousands," Cullen says.

"Have we counted? These things are important. For when I write about all this. Assuming that any of us lives out the week, which is at least looking more likely than it was this morning."

"You'll just make up a number, anyway."

"All right, I probably will do that."

"Thank you," Cullen says after they walk again for a while. "For helping with the fight."

"What can I say. We're all in the same boat."

"Only the boat is full of demons."

"I didn't say it was a _good_ boat," Varric says, but he thinks on the whole it's still better not to be in it alone.


End file.
